With AI company valuations screaming into the trillions of dollars, it can be hard to find the pulse of the AI boom. So to put it in terms the average person might relate to, let’s just say AI hype has gotten so ridiculous that it’s now propping up the Japanese toilet industry.
Absurd as that might sound, it’s now financial reality in our AI-obsessed world economy. According to Bloomberg, the Japanese company Toto Ltd — arguably the most famous smart toilet brand for US consumers — now expects more than half of its total capex in the coming years to revolve around AI.
Toto’s toilets are technological marvels: the bidets are warm, the seats clean themselves, and the flushes are engineered for maximum water conservation. None of that is why the company is surging on the back of AI, however.
What’s really happening is that Toto made a timely — if opportunistic — play into the space around AI chip manufacturing. Earlier in May, the company announced it was investing $190 million to strengthen its semiconductor production capacity, a sector it’s been active in since 1988, Bloomberg observes.
According to Bloomberg‘s “Money Minute” podcast, Toto’s main contribution to the AI market revolves around the production of electrostatic chucks. These little units are a crucial part of the AI chip-making process, where they act as thermally-conductive mounts to hold silicon wafers during fabrication. The vast majority of e-chucks are made of ceramic — hence Toto’s seemingly random decision to add them to its portfolio.
Though Toto’s smart toilet division is in trouble — it was forced to halt new orders in April thanks to ongoing material shortages — investors took the AI bait anyway, sending company shares soaring by 18 percent in May. They surged a further 11 percent on Wednesday after the capex announcement, proving that in today’s topsy-turvy economy, even a humble toilet maker can carve out a piece of the AI pie.
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